


Bathrooms and Buzz Cuts

by waterwings



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Hair cut, M/M, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Gay for Simon Snow, happy boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26942734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterwings/pseuds/waterwings
Summary: Simon Snow wants a buzz cut. Baz wants a happy boyfriend.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 27
Kudos: 128





	Bathrooms and Buzz Cuts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fool of a Book Wyrm (Lafeli85)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafeli85/gifts).



> who cut her hair recently, in a way that was different and new and just for her <3

**Simon**

_I think…I think I want a haircut._

The air is thick with water and stress. I take a breath, a deep one, one that I can feel in my guts and my ribs and my stomach….and let it out. My towel hits the floor

There is a thick layer of steam clinging to the bathroom mirror. _Is it terrible that I hide behind water molecules?_

I just…sometimes it’s hard to look. It wasn’t always like this, but then, _I_ wasn’t always like this.

_It’s not so bad. It’s not bad to look._

I can see an outline hiding behind the steam, the mirror bracketed in red muscle, dripping wet and sagging against my shoulders.

_Disgusting._

_No,_ I think. _Me._

Most days, I try to avoid this—looking at myself, I mean. Try to dodge those stray glimpses of my body in mirrors and windows and extra shiny cars. Reflections make ghosts of my self-esteem. The journey back through the veil of self-loathing has been a long one.

A journey, though, means progress. Steps taken, usually forward, sometimes back, but always somewhere. Where I can stare at the red wings bursting out of my skin and, sometimes, not hate them? Think about them as my access to the sky, as something both monstrous and me.

_Progress._

We match. In that much, at least. Fangs and wings, tails and blood.

Progress in secret moments, where his strong fingers traced gentle patterns into the place where my wings meet my shoulders. I’d whimpered (I hadn’t meant to, but no one touched me there and…) and he hadn’t stopped.

Progress when his lips moved up the bumps in my spine, roving from freckles to leathery skin without hesitation or restraint.

Moving together in the dark.

Finally. Progress. Hands and mouths and direction. (I don’t care where) (just that it’s with him).

I press my hand to the mirror’s cool surface, take a deep breath, and wipe the steam away.

_I really need a fucking haircut._

Sometimes, I can’t square the idea that this collection of parts add up to me. Blue eyes (plain) and shoulders (Baz really likes my shoulders.) (Scratches paint my skin, desperate and hungry) (reminders that someone like Baz Pitch can want _me_ ).

And my fucking hair. A soggy mess of curls, hanging limp round my face, and so fucking long. 

“I can’t keep this shit out of my eyes,” I’d moaned a few weeks back, despairing in front of the telly, trying not to tear my hair out by the roots. Baz had rolled his eyes and the next day, a package of black elastics appeared on my bedside table. (Tosser.) (Thoughtful tosser.) 

I need a cut. I want a cut. 

Cool arms sneak around my waist before I have the chance to disappear. My fucking progress does _not_ include my vampire boyfriend seeing me under florescent lights, naked and lumpy and a mess.

But then he’s pressing a kiss between my shoulder blades, and it gets harder and harder to remember why.

“Everything alright?” he whispers against my skin. Hands on the bony parts of my hips, holding me steady.

“I…I think I wanna…I want…”

Baz’s hands move up and into my wet hair, fingertips massaging my scalp. I try not to purr. _He always knows exactly what’s wrong. And what to do. And how to help._

The armour Baz used to wear—the sneers and the cold shoulders—melted a long time ago, leaving a prickly, anxious, wonderful mess.

A mess who wanted things. Wanted me.

The pressure of his fingers against my skull makes my bones soft. “I kinda wanna cut my hair,” I hum, the tangle of my words relaxing into the soothing circles he’s tracing into my curls.

“I’m sure we can arrange that.”

Those lips are moving over my neck. If he keeps this up, I’m going to bend him over the sink, fluorescent lighting be damned…

“No,” I say, my voice is a mess of feedback, thick with emotion and want. “I think I wanna do it now?”

“Oh?” Those hands move to my shoulders and gently turn me away from the hazy reflection. “Is everything okay, love?”

 _Love_. Crowley, I’ll never get tired of that. I didn’t think I would get a nickname. Baz calls it a _term of endearment_ (fancy prat) _._

“I think…” I focus on the base of Baz’s throat, where his clavicle comes together, in that tender place that I like to kiss. That I like to press under my thumbs. “I think I wanna shave it?”

I let my eyes drift up to his face, scrutinize it for a flinch, or a twitch, or some secret movement that will give him away. _He loves my hair._ “I won’t do it if you don’t want me to, obviously,” I blurt.

Baz lets his head tilt a bit to the side and takes me apart with his eyes. “Is it what you want?” It’s a question without judgement. _Crowley, I love him._

“I…I think so?”

Because I think it is.

Buzzing my head isn’t exactly new. When the school year at Watford would wind down, I’d eventually pull the clippers from my closet, lock myself in the bathroom, and sheer my curls clean off.

You don’t forget the feel of lice crawling through hair. Tiny legs darting across your scalp. A collection of dead skin and itching and the whole lifecycle of a tiny insect; my head has been an ecosystem. _Never again._

I cut my hair to make the summer months a tiny bit more bearable. To control one small part of that slice of life where nobody wanted me. Where I was without a home.

Haircuts out of necessity. For other people. For survival.

Never for me.

_But now?_

I’m no longer doomed to die on the battlefield or be sucked into a hell dimension or offer myself up as tribute to an insidious Humdrum. I don’t have to fight to the death or kill my roommate or wander back into a care home.

I run my hand up through my damp curls and slip my stubby fingers between Baz’s thin ones. Whatever is left in this world for me, I have a say. A choice. I don’t have to fight or run or act or _do_ for anyone else.

Everything that I do now…I lean in and press a quick kiss to Baz’s open mouth…well, that’s all for me.

**Baz**

Those plain blue eyes are a pot ready to boil. I can see the feelings moving across his face, in the corner of his mouth and the lines between his brow, and the way his lips push together.

I am fluent in five languages and the hidden meanings of Simon Snow’s face. I know that, if I stand here a little longer, he will try to explain. (Will take the words boiling in his chest and let them out into the open air.)

“I used to buzz it cause I had to. Now I’m cutting it cause I want to?” he says. “And that’s kinda…I dunno. It feels like…like…”

The words short circuit but I won’t let him fizzle. “Like you have control.”

Snow swallows. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Baz, I kinda…I wanna cut it off. Not for anyone else. Not because of shitty choices or because of shitty people. For me.”

I feel my throat tighten. No tears. This is his moment, not mine.

“But I don’t want…if you don’t want me to…I know you love my hair…”

It’s true. Those golden curls are a fucking tether to the world, when he’s above me, and I’m reaching for him, and I just need something to hold on to. I bury my fists and ride the impossible wave that is Simon Snow. 

But the truth hiding underneath the lust is simple.

I love him. I love every inch of him, from the mole under his eye down to his boney toes. From his bluster to the soft way he says my name. And, so long as I get to keep the rest of him, I decide I don’t give a fuck about his hair.

“I love _you,_ ” I say, and it comes out so sincere, there’s almost magic in it. I press my palm against his bare chest, still dripping. “The rest of this,” I say, gesturing up and down his body, “is wonderful. But completely fucking irrelevant.”

“What do you mean—”

“If you want to shave your head,” I say, every syllable earnest. “I’ll do it myself.”

Snow blushes, and then shuffles his feet, and then finally looks up at me. That grin should be a controlled substance, should be bottled and sold.

It is a reminder that my boyfriend is still made of magic.

“Go get the clippers,” he says.

**Simon**

The vibrations still make me shiver, the cold of the metal a soft shock against my skin. Baz’s long fingers comb through the thick swaths of hair, brushing it to the side, letting copper fall to the ground in front of the sink.

(It’s a mess but, for once, Baz doesn’t seem to mind).

When it’s done, he brushes me down, and dumps me back in the shower to rinse off the leftovers. I run my palm against the bristles that remain, savouring the feeling of coarse velvet.

When I step back out of the shower, I see Baz, standing stock still in front of the same foggy mirror. Grey eyes in a staring contest against grey eyes. The clippers are still in his hand.

“What is your big brain doing?” I ask.

He doesn’t look up. “You were worried I wouldn’t like it if you cut it off,” Baz murmurs, still holding the razor.

“I guess,” I say slowly.

He’s turned it back on.

“Right,” he says. And lifts the clippers to his hair. His perfect hair. His gorgeous hair. His amazing, silky, smooth, long hair. The thing he preens, and fixes, and obsesses over. He is Sampson and his hair is his pride and—

and he sheers a huge swath of it clean off.

“Baz!” I’m dripping wet and newly shaved and in complete fucking shock. 

He looks at me, face split in half with a smile that will forever dominate my universe.

“We match,” he says.

I don’t think. I pick the gangly fuck up and toss him over my shoulder. I’m soaked and naked and I’m pretty sure he’s shouting in protest, but I’m not listening.

I’m thinking about all of the ways I’m going to take him apart. I’m thinking about all of the spells that can regrow his perfect fucking hair. But, more than anything else, I’m thinking

_I love him I love him I love him._

**Author's Note:**

> (Liz, you're beloved and such a Simon and your haircut is fucking bomb!)
> 
> Come find me on tumblr!  
> [amywaterwings](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/amywaterwings/)


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